Stand By Your Hitman Page 8

  “Damn monkeys!” Lex cursed with a smile.

  Yeah. Damn monkeys, I thought. Damn monkeys with red hair.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, reaching up to touch the lump that was forming on his head.

  “I’m fine.” Lex smiled and it looked like we were going to make out again. Yay!

  “Missi! Lex! Jesus Christ, where the fuck are you bastards?” Sami’s voice was nearby.

  We broke apart quickly as she joined us. Looking from one to the other, Sami got this “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” look.

  “We’re celebrating back at camp.” She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. “But I think I interrupted some private celebration here.”

  “Sami!” I started. “You didn’t swear once in either sentence!”

  She grinned. “Guess I’m losing my goddamned touch.” Sami turned and raced off, leaving Lex and me to walk back to camp.

  “Tell me about yourself,” I teased. In all honesty, I didn’t know that much about him.

  Lex looked at me sideways and smiled. “What do you want to know?”

  “Whatever.” Gak! I was too new to this dating stuff. I didn’t want to sound like an idiot—I just couldn’t help myself.

  “Okay. I’m a bartender and former stuntman. I don’t really live in Canada. My brother thought it would be funny to sign me up for the show. I had no idea until I got the letter in the mail. By then I thought, why not? And here I am.”

  “That’s funny. My, um…” I paused, wondering how much to tell him about my family. I didn’t want to tell him the Bombays sent me here to kill Isaac. I was pretty sure that was a first-date no-no. “…mom and sons did the same thing to me.” I filled him in on Monty and Jack’s saying that they thought their mom should live a little. Not totally a lie. In fact, it was embarrassingly close to the truth.

  Lex laughed. “Do you think that’s how the others got here?”

  “I suspect Cricket’s fellow camp counselors were debating between this and killing her. I think Silas enjoys pain and suffering a little too much.”

  “What else should I know about you?” Lex squeezed my hand.

  “Oh. Well, I’m a widow and live in Texas.” There was no way I was going to tell him what I really did for a living, but I figured there was no harm in a little truth. “I’m an inventor. I like to make things.”

  “Like what?” he asked. Of course he asked. What the hell was I doing? It’s not like I could claim credit for Post-its. Although I’ve always been jealous that I didn’t come up with them. That and those plastic sleeves menus come in so they don’t get messy.

  “Oh, this and that.” I tried to change the direction a little. I couldn’t talk about my disintegrating bullets or exploding Wacky WallWalkers, now, could I? At least, not yet.

  I pulled my bracelet off and straightened it. “I invented this for the show.” I pointed out the saw, the flint stones, and other handy applications.

  “I’m impressed. So that’s how you’ve managed out here. And that explains the resourcefulness in the challenges.”

  Lex’s reply made me sigh with relief. Maybe he wouldn’t press. And now that we were back at camp, there’d be more people to distract him.

  “Great job!” Isaac called as we rejoined everyone.

  “I think it’s really cool that you saved Inuit like that,” Cricket chirped. “But we have to be careful. We don’t want them to win.”

  Silas nodded. “That was honorable. Damned challenge wasn’t very authentic.”

  Julie interrupted our little party, casting a dour malaise on everything.

  “Ottawa’s presence is requested at Tribal Council,” she said as if announcing the Queen of England.

  “Why?” Lex stepped forward. “We won. Why should we have to go?”

  Julie put her hand up in his face. “You get to watch the other team vote off a member. And you really have to be silent this time!”

  We looked at each other. That seemed rather cruel. Leave it to Julie to come up with something like that. What a sadist. She’d fit right in with the Bombays. I was starting to wonder about her lineage, when Isaac broke in.

  “When do we go?”

  “Now,” Julie answered. She turned and marched imperiously into the jungle. No one followed her, mainly because we hated her.

  She returned, red-faced. “I said, NOW!”

  It only took a few minutes to get to the pool at the Blanco Tigre. A little section was roped off for us and a luau for the guests was in full swing. Now that was cruel. We stared, drooling at the clean, well-dressed tourists gobbling down roasted pork, fruit kabobs and more. I was salivating over the iced-down beer, but that’s just me.

  “Are you fucking kidding?” Sami said to Julie. “We have to do this here? And we have to watch all those goddamned bastards eating like that?”

  “Sami!” Julie turned red again and I wondered if her head would pop off. “Please stop swearing! If you don’t, I’ll have to dub your voice on the tape!”

  Sami winked at me. “Whatever, bitch.”

  “She’s got a point,” Silas started. “This ain’t authentic at all. How can we go through with this if ya ain’t followin’ the rules?”

  The rest of us nodded and it was clear that Julie wanted to be somewhere else. But we weren’t letting her off the hook. This was mean and stupid.

  At that second, who should round the corner with a plate of food but Alan. He was flirting with some blonde, a cold beer in one hand and a mouth full of barbecue.

  “You know,” Alan said to the blonde, “I work in television. I’m a big star up north.”

  I figured that he was implying the U.S., because who the hell cares about a big star in Canada? The girl giggled and—oops, will you look at that? Her dress strap accidentally slipped from her shoulder.

  Julie cleared her throat obnoxiously and Alan froze when he saw us, looking like a kid who got caught with his whole arm in the cookie jar.

  “Julie, could I see you for a moment please?” His voice was strained and I couldn’t help but giggle. As a group, we followed her.

  “Guys—” Alan started, smearing barbecued pork– stained fingers on a napkin. He had a big glob of it on his face. We didn’t tell him. “Just Julie, okay?”

  Sami shook her head. “I don’t fucking think so, you bastard. It’s torture enough being here. Might at least have a little goddamned fun.”

  Ernie shouldered his camera and whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll catch it. I’ll share it with you if you give me a little footage of you performing one of your miracles later.” I winked my response and he followed the two off into the jungle.

  The second they were out of sight, the Ottawa tribe scrambled for the buffet table. Without a word we stuffed as much food as we could into our bags. To my surprise, Silas scooped up enough beer for us to get pretty drunk later. I guessed he was getting sick of the show too. Either that or they’d had a kegger at the surrender at Appomattox.

  We were all seated and looking innocent when Alan returned, barbecue glob still on his face. Julie looked seriously pissed. Ernie was grinning. I guess we could add entertainment to the booze and food later.

  “Will the Inuit Tribe please enter the Tribal Council area?” Alan boomed, raising his arms like he was some kind of god.

  One by one, the other team filed in, looking with surprise at us, and with horror at the luau going on around them. Several of the resort guests dragged chairs over, with full plates on their laps.

  “Inuit,” Alan intoned, staring not at the team, but at the bimbo in the audience. The lump of sauce on his face quivered respectfully. “You lost the immunity challenge. Therefore, you have to vote off one of your members.” He pointed dramatically at them and his voice got even louder. “One of you will be going home to night.”

  “Kit,” Alan said, “you’ve spent these first few days without food or drinkable water. How are you feeling?”

  Kit sniffled. “Well, Alan, it’s pretty hard, you know?” She looked at o
ur host—who, in turn, looked pissed off that she’d used his first name—then burst into tears. “I can’t get voted off! Not tonight! I’ve been the first one voted off two other reality shows! Please, please, please, don’t vote for me!” the leggy brunette pleaded with her teammates.

  The resort guests stared at her, eyes wide open, and filling their mouths with food. I hoped they’d get trichinosis.

  “Um, okay.” Alan squirmed (which made me happy). “Brick. How about you?”

  Brick turned in his seat toward the camera and stared at it thoughtfully for a moment. Or at least, acting like he was staring thoughtfully at it. I noticed Moe rolling his eyes and smiled.

  “Being stranded, here in paradise, with only the simplest of needs met, I find that I—Brick Phoenix—am like a child lost among the tempest storm of life…itself.” He frowned at the camera, then turned back to Alan, who looked a little shaken.

  “Liliana?” Our host squeaked.

  This Inuit member rose to her feet, startling everyone else. “My body is my art. Food and water are the media I use to sustain my art. Without these tools, my body will no longer be art.” She sat down dramatically.

  I was starting to think everyone on Inuit had some form of heatstroke. Alan didn’t seem to know how to respond to any of this.

  Moe raised his hand and spoke before being asked. “I think it sucks.” He reminded me of the character Ed, in Shaun of the Dead. “Especially with the resort so close by. But I’ll do whatever I have to do to win the twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  What? We were playing for only twenty-five thousand dollars? The other show at least gave you one million dollars if you won. These poor bastards were playing for practically nothing! My empathy level spiked for Inuit and I cursed the producers.

  “I think what you have here is our struggle with our inner selves,” Dr. Andy piped up, using his hands as he spoke. Obviously he thought it gave him more of a stage presence. He was an African American Dr. Phil wannabe. “In living so primitively, we are literally starving the part of our ego that demands entitlement. It’s very therapeutic when you look at it that way.”

  I could have used some therapy. I wished I could have talked to Dr. Andy just then about my problem. Of course, I couldn’t—but there was something comforting in knowing he was right there.

  Bob seemed to realize he was the only one who hadn’t spoken, so he threw in his two cents. No politician could stay quiet for long, but I wasn’t surprised he’d waited to get in the last word. “I suggest that no matter what, we do this demo cratically, for the right reasons. I see no reason why we have to get political about this. That’s just partisan politics.”

  Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Now that I saw that the Inuit tribe had all been recruited from the “short bus,” I didn’t feel so bad about what I was dealing with.

  “Just go vote!” Alan shouted. He was very flustered. I wished I had some popcorn. The kind with movie theater butter. I love that. No salt though, because if you salt the top half you end up drinking most of your pop, which means you’ll have to go to the bathroom every five minutes, and for what you pay for tickets these days, you might as well just go home….

  “Now I’ll tally up the votes,” Alan stated loudly, regaining some of his composure. Gee. That went fast. How long was I thinking about popcorn?

  Kit burst into a fresh round of tears as if anticipating the inevitable as Alan opened the large clay pot and pulled out the first vote.

  He lifted the first slip of parchment out and read, “Kit. The first vote is for Kit.”

  Kit immediately added loud sobs.

  “The second vote is for Liliana.” Alan said. “One vote for Kit, one for Liliana.”

  He reached in and pulled out the third slip. “Bob. One vote for Kit, one for Liliana and one for Bob.”

  Kit howled. My guess was that it just hurt having been the first vote and hearing it over and over again.

  “The fourth vote is for”—Alan frowned as he read the paper—“Dr. Andy. One vote for Kit. One vote for Liliana. One vote for Bob. One vote for Dr. Andy.”

  Julie was turning a little green at the gills. I guessed she didn’t like the suspense. But I figured it wasn’t hurting the show to drag it out to the last vote.

  “Brick received the fifth vote.” Alan looked pretty worried as he again parroted the vote so far. Really, there only needed to be one more vote for any of those names and they’d be out of the game.

  “And the last vote is for…” Beads of sweat broke out on Alan’s forehead. “Moe? Are you joking?”

  We just stared in shock. No one had been voted off. Everyone had received one vote. What were the odds of that happening?

  “Do you even know how to play this game?” Alan shrieked at Inuit. “You’re supposed to form alliances! This kind of crap isn’t supposed to happen!”

  I started laughing. Lex squeezed my knee (which is very close to you-know-what). Isaac winked and Sami whispered a goddamn.

  “All right!” Julie took charge with the ease of a storm trooper. “We’ll just have to vote again!” She pointed at Moe and he slowly rose to go to the ballot box.

  “You’re out of paper,” he said simply.

  We all looked over and, true enough, there was no more paper. Obviously, there was no backup plan.

  “Will this work?” A cabana boy threw a resort stationery pad at Alan. I noticed with a start that the resort audience had doubled in size. Kind of like that scene in The Birds where Tippi Hedren is sitting on a bench outside the school? And with each puff of her cigarette, more birds landed until she turned around and found the monkey bars coated with crows? Kind of like that.

  Julie handed the hotel stationery to Moe and he wrote down his vote. One by one, everyone went up to cast their vote.

  “Now, I’ll read the votes.” Alan pulled the whole handful out of the jar and flipped through them, reading as he went. “Kit,” he recited, causing Kit to start wailing again, “Moe, Liliana, Bob, Brick, Dr. Andy, goddamn it! You did it again!” He slammed the lid of the jar to the ground, causing it to splinter into a million pieces.

  So, we watched as Inuit voted two more times, and each time, each person (starting with Kit every time for some strange reason) received one vote and no one was voted off.

  At first I thought it was some very clever strategy on Inuit’s part to avoid losing a teammate. And then I thought they were each writing their own name down in hopes of being voted off and hitting the buffet. But as we went on, the looks of complete surprise and frustration on their faces (especially Kit’s) led me to believe they really warranted that short bus.

  “That’s it!” Alan’s face was turning red. “I’m thinking of a number between one and twenty.”

  Julie turned toward him, stunned. “Surely you’re not going to just have them guess a number!”

  I don’t know, it sounded pretty smart to me. I was getting sick of sitting in the hot sun with a bag of food hidden under my chair probably breeding all kinds of nasty bacteria.

  “Yes, I am!” Alan stamped his foot. He pointed at Kit first (I guess it just seemed automatic at this point) and shouted for her to choose a number.

  “Um”—Kit choked back a sob—“nineteen?”

  One by one, the six of them told Alan a number.

  “Ha!” Alan’s frown turned into a creepy-looking grin. “It was seven! Bob is the first person vot…I mean removed from Survival. Now bring me your damn torch and we’re done.”

  Bob stood and nodded to the team, then walked his torch over to Alan.

  “Yadda, yadda, yadda,” Alan babbled as he doused the man’s torch. “Bob, the tribe has spoken.”

  Julie escorted Bob off the set and into the main resort building, where I guessed she was checking him into a room. Lucky bastard. We were still sitting there when he came outside with a grin and loaded up his plate at the buffet.

  “The rest of you go back to your camps. Tomorrow we will have another challenge.” Alan had regained some
of his professionalism, but I thought I saw a spark of madness around the eyes. The blonde had disappeared and the barbecue glob had fallen and smeared down the length of his white, linen shirt.

  Chapter Fourteen

  NARRATOR: Even a poisonous snake isn’t bad. You just have to keep away from the sharp end.

  —The Gods Must Be Crazy

  “That was a hell of a thing,” Sami muttered through a mouthful of fruit.

  Everyone nodded as we sat on the beach eating our contraband food. Silas had managed to hide a bottle of beer for each of us and we were all feeling pretty mellow. For a second I thought about my glaucoma stash on Santa Muerta.

  “At least we have this,” Isaac raised his banana-leaf plate.

  Lex nodded. “I still can’t believe Julie didn’t notice us walking out of the pool area leaking barbecue sauce.”

  I elbowed him gently in the ribs. “She’s too concerned about the nonvote and Alan’s extracurricular activities.” For a moment, I wondered if Julie was in love with Alan. Then I threw up in my mouth and the feeling was over.

  “Do you think we should do that when we go to Tribal Council?” Cricket chirped.

  Everyone laughed and we continued eating. I was feeling all warm and gooey—like marshmallow crème. At one point, Sami and I volunteered to get more kindling.

  “Why are you here?” Sami asked me once we were too far away to be overheard.

  I shrugged. “It seemed like something to do.” My family set me up to knock off Isaac just didn’t have the right ring to it.

  “How about you?”

  Sami coughed and I heard her thoughts rattle around in her chest. She may not have been smoking anymore, but the damage was done.

  “I know you think I lead this fucking glamorous life as a traveling electrician….” She politely paused as I giggled. “But behind the tiaras and French champagne was a woman who screamed for a fucked-up adventure.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. It was just like that for me too. I couldn’t believe my luck to get a crusty Civil War junkie and psychotic camp counselor in the same deal.”